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Food and Community

© Bob Ewing

The Holiday Season has passed. Winter should be hard upon us. Notice that I said should. Here, it is definitely not upon us, nor even threatening us with icy blasts from across Lake Superior. There is no snow, or almost no snow, at least not in town, anyway. The temperatures remain mild, hovering around 0 Celsius during the day and rarely lower than -15 over night. In some ways, this weather makes the waiting for Spring even more difficult, you just know it's gotta snow hard, any day now, and then we'll be months digging ourselves out from under.

This time of the year is usually the most difficult for me as it is a waiting period. The seed catalogues have all arrived. I've been through them each several times, paring down my order to an amount I can actually afford. It is too early to start seeds indoors, planting out won't happen before June. A greenhouse would make a difference. It would provide a place to putter and plan and dream while I waited for Spring. The greenhouse will have to wait for another year or two.

I do have my small indoor vegetable and herb garden to look after. The tomato plants are doing quite well. They will be in blossom soon. The eggplant, an experiment this year, is growing, slowly, but growing. We will see what happens. I also have a small collection of approximately 35 houseplants to maintain and enjoy. There are always cuttings sitting in plastic bottles waiting for friends to pick up. As these plants mature, they lend an almost visible aura to the apartment. They certainly take up space. When you sit in the living room, you are entirely surrounded by plants. It feels very comfortable.

I'm straying somewhat from my topic but feel that we don't spend enough time thinking about our relationship with plants. We have drifted away from that essential and intimate connection to Nature that we need. Perhaps, our food production and distribution system best demonstrates that separation. Food travels thousands of miles from the field where it is grown to where we buy and eat it. Of course, grown may not be the best word for some of the foods or food-like substances that we eat.

The fast food franchises that dominate the neon alleys in many urban centres have also disconnected us from the source. Food comes to us through a take out window, wrapped up and ready to eat or over a counter on a tray we carry to a table. There is no involvement on our part, except to pay and eat. We need to develop community food systems that provide food for everyone and a chance to get to know your neighbour.

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